I apologize for the liberal quoting of Matt Cutts comments over on sphinn, but I think it’s important to understand the ramifications of something like this:
“Where does Cutt’s and search engines stand on something like this?”
My quick take is that Google’s webmaster guidelines allow for cases such as this: “Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It’s not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn’t included on this page, Google approves of it.”
There’s not much more deceptive or misleading than a fake story without any disclosure that the story is hoax.
When Google has the ability to decide what information get presented and valued on the web with absolute and unquestioned authority, all because we trust them and they give us free tools and 25GB of free GMAIL space, we’ve sold them the internet for pile of magic beans.
Remember friends authoritarian dictatorships start by controlling what information the people get to see, hear, and read. It doesn’t matter if they are censoring jokes, or hoaxes today, what matters is they are going in and changing the rules of the game, midstream, just because they didn’t like the way things were turning out.
Don’t think hoax news stories have value, perhaps you should learn about Orson Wells and War of the Worlds. It’s easy to dismiss things like this as trivial today because maybe you agree with Google … but what happens when you are the one being censored … think Google will offer you a refund on those magic beans …
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Congratulations Michael! That’s the one post in a series of unreasonable Google bashing posts that finally makes me unsubscribe.
everytime you address this issue i find myself saying “right the hell on!”
the more and more google tries to “determine the intent” the more they remind me of the thought police.
if a man that has zero knowledge of how search engines work finds a way to get 10,000 links to his website because his girlfriend told him “i bet you can’t” is he a “cheating” spammer? if lyndon wasn’t a marketer but just a great satirist would google “respond negatively” to this art?
The ‘War of the Worlds’ example has been brought up a few times in this debate. Maybe it’s time people actually read the Wikipedia entry or looked a little further into it.
Yes, it reached a huge audience and had a massive impact that made Welles a household name. But it was a name for notoriety rather than brilliance. He narrowly avoided punishment for it but was censured. CBS changed their policies on drama forever. Welles regretted the incident throughout his career, stating that he had gone too far.
The negative backlash was immense.
So sure, let’s talk about the value of a hoax, but let’s look at the long term effects rather than just the instant links and instant audience figures. Hoaxes or media lies always have a negative consequence. Ribena recently irrepairably (sp) damaged their brand with the marketing lie over the vitamin c content. When that came out, the negative backlash was so immense, their bottom line is still recovering.
As to the other question of Google, I don’t see any change on Google’s behalf.
Michael-
I could not agree more. We are not just talking about search results here but the free flow of information. Google has a tremendous responsibility in the age of information. Of course there is the additional challenge of corporate responsibility and profitability. Does Google really strive to be a good citizen?
I believe the War of the Worlds broadcast began with a disclaimer (stating it was a work of fiction). The problem came about from people who tuned in after it had already started, so they didn’t hear the disclaimer and thought it was true.
I’m a big fan of linkbait, and if that sphinn story (kid steals credit card and hires hookers to play Xbox) had appear on some regular joe’s website – and been picked up by Fox News and other mainstream news agencies – then I would have been hella impressed and given kudos for it…
But it appeared on a reputable news website that most would assume is printing legitimate and researched news stories (unless it was dated April 1st).
It’s like if CNN.com reported a story that a 5 year old girl in Michigan fell on her head and when she awoke could speak fluent French. People would believe that story because it appeared on CNN, and there’s a level of trust and faith that what they print is true. And if it came out later that it was a hoax perpetrated by CNN, I don’t think the extra links and buzz the story generated would make up for that loss of faith in CNNby the public.
But if some shmoe wrote it on his blogspot blog, and got all the news agencies to report it as true, then THAT would be an achievement. He’d be starting from scratch anyway, and the inbound links and buzz would make the kickstart well worth any negative comments the hoax would initially generate.
Just my 2 cents.
“We (at Google) are not in charge of truth but we might be able to give a probability.”
-eric schmidt, 2006
Google has the obligation to display trustworthy search results, and whom do you trust the most ? Yes, your own relatives: google maps,youtube, Dmoz and wikipedia..
Eric Schmdt’s comments remind me Stalin comments. And that’s not funny anymore.
Also, who regards “FOX” Television as a reliable media source?? Their news is complete and biased joke.
Btw, Michael, it’s not possible to post comments here using IE7 (500 Internal error).
standing on morals or being ethical has it’s place in business.
As an owner of a website, I think you raise a good point. Google is on the verge of being the start of all
searches. That may not be such a good thing in the long run.
It will be interesting to see if there a rash of Onion type stories surface on B/H sites. Of course if it were that easy. Thing is, to know a piece of content is false, first you have to know about it and then you have to prove that it is false. In this case the story was proven false by the Daily Telegraph contacting the Newark cops. Or did they?
Is truth absolute or is it relative? Relative to your Adwords buy perhaps.
As I didn’t make any claims to whether the story was true or not, merely let people make their own decision, I don’t understand why the story is considered a lie. It’s not a lie, it’s an invention, a creation, something that has been made up. But it’s not a lie.
What you write may now be penalized because of what you write. If you write in a particular way it will be judged to be less valid. A judgement is made against it and a penalty incured. So in future I guess we have to be careful what we right and arrange the letters and spaces in such a way that does not piss off Google.inc
It may be easier simply to post your content to google for them to check it and give you the all clear. Sure, it may slow things down a bit but at least we will all be safe in the knowledge that the web is for truth and righteousness.
Michael, I totally agree with you.
Google is the number one hoaxer with its Link Baiting TISP http://tinyurl.com/2gsp4p and other silly imaginable products.
Also Matt Cutts is a hypocrite and a fake. His Blog gets PR 7 from being linked to the Official Google Blog with a DoFollow link. He says his blog is “not official” meanwhile he promotes every product release from Google in a positive light.
So following Google quality guidelines he gets paid from Google to promote their products on his “unofficial” blog.
This looks like Paid Per Review Post which he “DoFollow” to Google domain.
Matt Cutts blog needs to be deindexed from Google for violating Google Quality Guidelines.
Of course it’s about control, that’s the name of the game.
The American people or the world for that matter were sold a war with Iraq from complete fabricated non-sense and was all media driven.
The internet is the new front for this next generation and you know he that control’s the internet control it all.
Maybe it’s time to educate our kids to a Socratic method of common sense thinking!!
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